Assignment
by secondcreeperskull
Summary: A 18 years old boy has been kidnapped by a mysterious man. With the claim of the end of the world as a predicted future, he was given a task to stop it from ever happening, even if it will result in deaths of soon-to-be-loved ones.


This is the story of how I, an ordinary person who has no interest in spiritual gimmicks or whatever bullshits about that…get involved in one of the most bizarre events a person would have in his life. It all started back in the day when I was in the school. Nothing special, just another boring school day for me to do another boring thing until a girl sent an envelope to me. Without too much thinking, I opened this envelope and this is what I got:

 _Dear Hitomi's best friend_

 _I've taken one of your friends, Hitomi. You want her back, you meet me at the back of the school now._

 _Nobody_

This is normal for me. I'm a sort of person who prefers to spend most of his time alone. My fellow classmates often try to mess with me even though I have proven myself to be someone you shouldn't fuck with by knocking some senses into them. As you would've expected, I calmly walked to the back of the school as the message told me to. When I reached there, I discovered nothing, literally. It appeared to be 'just another prank' to me at first until the moment when I turned around and saw a man in a black, waiting for me to look at him. Before I could do anything, the man threw his punch to my face. My vision suddenly went black before I even realized that.

* * *

I woke up again when the same man had been dragging me to what appears to be inside of the hallway in a building. This person dressed like a police, no…more like a mercenary.

"Why did I end up here? Why me?" My mind was racing in thoughts as I was dragged into a cell.

They threw me in before I could do anything. I just sat there, look at them as they locked the door to prevent me from coming out. I was silent for a while. Few moments later, a man came to me. Judging from his appearance, he seemed to be around his 40s. It was obvious that he is mentally ill, mainly because the way he spoke to his men.

"You have chosen a right person." Said the man

He opened the door which is connected to the cell and just stood there, right where he was talking.

"Please, come out." He asked kindly. "We need to talk."

I stood up cautiously and slowly walked to him. He appeared to have a good intention although his face clearly showed he desperately needed some help. He led me to a private room and told his men to guard this area while he does the talking with me. He opened the door and let me go inside first. He then followed.

The room was pretty small, only 2 chairs and a coffee table was found at the center of the room. There're no windows in this room whatsoever, ruined my plan to escape while we do the "talking".

"Please, sit." The man said. So I did while frowning at him. The man sat on the chair on the other side of me shortly afterwards.

"What do you want?" I began.

"The world will come to an end," The man sighed "You need to stop it."

I was confused about what he was talking. How could the world come to an end?

"The fuck are you talking about? And why am I ended up here?" I asked.

"You need to listen, young boy" He replied. His face was serious although I couldn't tell if he really meant it or he just believed in some crazy shit that isn't real.

He picked up his bag and searched for something. He then showed me a set of photos. These photos contained pictures of 8 students and a teacher. I noticed right away that something is a bit odd; four of them have their face blacked out, blocking all the face features such as eyes, nose and mouth. Whether it was real or not, I became nervous and started to shiver a little bit.

"There was an incident involved 8 students and a teacher. They performed what was known as 'Sachiko Ever After'. They believed that this charm will bond their friendship forever. The consequence of doing this charm is…tragic." The man sighed then he continued with his story while I just sat there, frozen.

"Four of them died in a dimension that looked like a school named 'Heavenly Host elementary school' which has been demolished for decades in real world. But that's not the worst. After the rest made it out from there, they found out the ones who died there has their existence wiped clean." He then pointed his finger towards one of the photos laid on the coffee table.

"Do you know who this was?" He asked me.

"No." I quickly answered.

"Of course, you don't. This girl was Seiko Shinohara, a victim of this incident. No one except the other victims of this incident remember her."

"Why?"

"Because she doesn't exist anymore." I still have a doubt on him.

"How could I know that you're telling me the proof? You could have just hired someone to black out their faces!" I shouted at him.

This is when he became angry. He leaned his body towards me.

"Do I look like I'm in the mood to be fucking around?!" He stared at me for a while before he got back to his chair. He seriously meant it. There was no point doubting him anymore.

"…How do you know all this?" I asked calmly

"I'm afraid that's the part I can't tell you, boy." He replied

"So what do you want from me then?"

"I want you to prevent something from ever happening."

"Prevent?" This didn't sound like an easy job. The man continued.

"Find this girl, Ayumi Shinozaki." The man pointed into one of the female student. "She will go to the Shimorenjaku South Apartments tonight. Stop her from getting Book of Shadows."

I was confused by the name "Book of Shadows" before the man gave me another photo containing a picture of the same book. Before I could have asked anything, the man spoke coldly.

"Kill her if necessary."

I was shocked by what he said. My eyes are widened even though I tried to remain my calm expression. Nobody tells a student to kill another for whatever reason even if he did something wrong. No wonder he looked like what he is now. I was ready to punch him at this point but knowing that it would just get me killed or at least in trouble, I decided to walk away instead. Just when I was about to jump out of the chair, the man spoke.

"Please, don't go."

"You're out of your fucking mind."

"I do, many people have said that. You don't have to be one of them."

"I'm not doing this." I declared

"Then I hope you'll die suffering."

 _"FUCK YOU!"_ I let my anger took over me. I've just had it. Before I could walk out from this room, the men obstructed the entrance, prevented me from getting out of here. I turned around just to see the man stared at me coldly.

"Ayumi Shinozaki has been released from the hospital today after she has stayed there for 2 months. During this whole time, I tried to find people just like you. You're not the first one to have a talk like this with me…but you might be the last one on my list to do so." The man kept talking even though I gave him the most furious face I possibly can.

"Why me?" I asked

"Don't ask. Just remember that you're better than I thought. I can literally see it." His answer didn't satisfy my burning question. It was also unclear what he meant by "better than he thought".

"The fate of this world is in your hand. Do your job." The man ended the conversation and handed me all those photos he showed me. I quickly ran away as soon as his men moved away from the entrance.

* * *

I stayed at my house for the rest of the day. I didn't like to study either so that was ok for me. I went through series of thoughts; mainly asking myself "Is what he said real? If I don't do the "job" that he said, will it be the end of the world?" After hours of thinking, I decided to go to the apartment he mentioned just to see if what he said is true or not.

It took me two hours to arrive at the destination through walking and sitting in a bus. When I reached the apartment, the sky was already darkened. Combined with the abandoned looking of the building, the atmosphere around here just became creepy. The first floor has nothing but mailboxes and series of stairs leading to the second floor. It's odd though that a candle was found in front of the entrance, telling me that someone must have been gone through this building. As I walked towards the stairs, I noticed that a mailbox was left open and on the floor…there was a dead bird…in a napkin. I stopped, frozen in fear. This is not something you would see every day. Despite irrelevant to what I was looking for, I was convinced that a man wasn't joking. There must be something strange enough to attract so-called Ayumi to come here. I didn't want to go further but something so bizarre can't be left undiscovered, at least for me so I decided to proceed anyway.

Along the journey on the series of stairs, I realized that the man didn't say a thing about which room she will go to, if she was even going to a room. That concerned me a bit but instead of yelling or cursing that man, I used my instinct to locate her. Lucky, as I found the room with a door left open, probably by her or just entirely someone else. I came closer to the room and noticed the tag beside the room "Shinozaki". I wasn't entirely sure if she, someone else or simply no one was inside at all. With the fact that her family name appears to be Shinozaki as well, I had no reason to go elsewhere other than this room. I sneaked into the room, not wanting anyone, if there is one to notice that I was here. The first room I entered appears to be kitchen. The room wasn't very big but large enough to fit a fridge, counter tables, and a dining table with a chair. On a table I could see a set of papers laid around on it. Before I could even read those papers, I heard a loud thud as well as a girl, screaming from behind. I quickly turned around and saw a door next to the one I came from. I wasn't sure who she was but I could tell that she is in deep trouble. On one hand, she might be someone who desperately needed help from me. On the other hand, this place might just be haunted by a ghost who was reliving her events or trying to scare me off. I made up my decision. I would open the door and see what was happening inside the room. Having that in mind, I quickly slide the open and discovered no one in the room. I looked around and spotted another door which seemed to be where the sound came from. I rushed into that room and what I saw…is terrifying. In the center of the room, a schoolgirl was sitting with her nose bled non-stop. What was in front of her appeared to be a translucent elderly woman, and by translucent I mean, I could partially see through her as if she was a hologram.

My first instinct told me this was nothing but a ghost, and a girl who was sitting was Shinozaki as the man said. There was no time for confirmation, however. By the time I figured that out, the girl had already fell limp and the ghost was looking at me.

I slowly stepped back then ran as fast as I can to the kitchen, then to the front door. It was locked however, by the unknown reason. I tried to turn the knob and push my way through and even kicked it but it won't budge. Just as I got the idea of getting a chair and smash the door with it, the ghost finally catches up and stood in front of me. I started to panic. I couldn't do anything other than not letting it get closer to me by screaming and yelling at it.

"Don't go don't go don't go don't go don't go don't…"

The ghost kept repeating the words as it get closer and closer to me. Having no choice, I started to look around for weapons. I picked up a pair of scissors found on the cabinet and held it tightly in my right hand, ready to attack it.

"Get away from me! GET AWAY! _DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS!"_ I warned the ghost even I know it wouldn't listen. Just when I thought my life was about to end, there was a sound of someone knocking the front door that I have been leaning this whole time. I suddenly turned back as I heard the sound. Someone knocked the door again and said:

"Hey, is someone there?!"

Someone was coming. The ghost has disappeared just as I paid attention to the door. I didn't know what to do or what to explain when he comes in but I did know that I have to hide my scissors that I held so that he wouldn't see me as a psychopath.

"OPEN THE DOOR, GOD DAMNIT!"

The person outside yelled as I hid the scissors inside a shoe cabinet. I quickly turned the door knob and pulled the door towards me, without noticing him charging into where-should-have-been-a-door. He fell to the ground pretty hard for doing so.

It was a boy who was on the floor in front of me. He has a familiar-looking appearance. It was very familiar as if I have seen him few hours ago. That was the moment I realized he was in one of the photos the man gave me.

The boy stood up and looked at me before saying:

"Did you see a girl named Shinozaki?"

I could only stand there and remained silent. My brain at this point wasn't processing due to what just happened to me.

"Hey! Did you SEE a girl named Shinozaki?!" The boy asked again. I was able to answer him this time.

"Yes, I saw her."

"Where is she?!"

"She's in that room..." I answered while breathing heavily. I pointed out my finger to the door on the right side "Something happened."

My words caused his eyes to widen.

"WHAT?!"

"Something happened to her…"

The boy quickly dashed into the room upon hearing that. He bashed through the door and shouted for her name. Few seconds passed after I just stood there like a dummy trying to figure out what was happening, more people came in and found me staring at them. There're two of them; one was a male student while the other was female. The male student has short brown hair and wears a white button-up shirt with black pants. The female student has short brown hair as well but she wears somewhat looked like a brown jacket and a blue skirt. Just like that blondie who made his way to the room, they have very similar features to the students in the photos I have.

"Are you okay? Did you see a ghost or something?" the boy asked. He seemed to notice my heavy breathing as well as my face which has completely turned pale.

"Yeah, I did." I replied. The blondie who was already in the bedroom shouted for Shinozaki again, caused them to enter the room before I could even tell anything about what just happened. I followed them as they ran towards the bedroom where Shinozaki was. The blondie sat her carefully on tatamine flooring while the rest of us watched them, with me from a distance and two other people very near to them. She regained her consciousness few seconds afterward.

"…Kishinuma-kun…" she murmured as her eyes slowly opened up to meet up with their worried gaze.

"Thank goodness you're okay!" the girl said while wiping her tears off her eyes.

While everyone was happy to see each other, Ayumi seemed to startle a bit when she found out that I was looking at her this whole time.

"W-Who is this? What's he doing here?" She asked the blondie

"Umm…I just heard from someone that this place is haunted so I came to see if it's true or not." I replied back and of course, it was a lie. I didn't come here for that reason.

"So what happened?" the boy in white shirt asked. I tried my best to explain about what happened to me and Shinozaki. After a brief talking, the blondie who was called "Kishinuma-kun" by Shinozaki herself, turned back to her and scolded her for coming here.

"Shinozaki, what the hell did you think you were doing coming here by yourself?!"

"I-I…I had to. I just had to…" she replied, with her voice started becoming hoarse

As they were talking, I picked up photos I have in my pockets just to confirm if these are people I was looking for. Surprisingly, they all matched the photos I have. And fortunately, with each of photos has a name written under the picture, I was able to find out that the boy with white shirt was named "Satoshi Mochida" while the girl was called "Naomi Nakashima" and the blondie who recently want to see Ayumi to death was known as "Yoshiki Kishinuma". Meanwhile, Naomi was about to interrupt the talking but Satoshi prevented her from doing that.

"I…was the cause of this."

"The cause of what?!" Yoshiki seemed confused upon hearing that.

"Everything! Everything's my fault! All of our friends are gone because of me! Even sis… Even she's gone!" Shinozaki suddenly burst out. She sobbed like a baby and her face became a mess. I couldn't do anything about it other than looking at her while questioning myself who is the "Sis" she was referring to.

"How is this your fault?"

"Because it was my idea to do 'Sachiko Ever After'!" She burst out again. "I'm the one who brought it to school and had everyone stay to participate! That was the start of it all! IT'S MY FAULT!"

There was no doubt at all. The man was right; these people are survivors of Heavenly Elementary Host. They went through hell and back, and Ayumi was taking the entire burden to herself.

"How can you possibly take sole responsibility for that?!" Yoshiki said. He was probably angry that she put all the blame on herself like this.

"Hey…we're a team, Shinozaki." He reassured her "You know that, right?"

She sheepishly nodded her head, not wanting to make eye contact with him.

"…then don't forget it! Stop taking everything on yourself! Let me put it to you real simple. Don't you ever think for a second…that this is all your fault!"

"Kishinuma…"

"You're not to blame! Okay!? So stop blaming yourself, damnit!" He turned around to all of us and said

"Everybody else here feels the same way too…right?"

"Yeah. Yoshiki's right." Satoshi said

"He's exactly right." Naomi said "You shouldn't always try to take everything on by yourself."

"Yeah. And you shouldn't do something like this by yourself." I added "I would be dead by now if you guys didn't come here in time so don't do that."

"I…I…I didn't want you guys to get dragged into this! I tried to do it myself so you wouldn't have to, but…but I was scared!" she continued to push herself down despite our words.

"I just…couldn't…I couldn't do anything…"

"God, you're so dense! That's what I'm trying to tell you. You did good just-"

"What? I'm dense? That's mean…" She cut him off early upon hearing that

"Ah, oh…that's not what I meant…" Yoshiki quickly made an excuse for himself

While all of us tried to reassure her, I heard footsteps from a distance. I looked into the direction where it came from and saw a rather weird individual in purple dress. She has all the spiritual gimmicks all over her outfits, so many that she looked like a witch or something worse, yet she maintained a beautiful face with a pair of purple eyes, very cold ones…

"You claim you couldn't do anything, however. But I'm not quite convinced that's true." The woman finally spoke. Everyone except Shinozaki didn't startle at all upon seeing her.

"You must be Ayumi Shinozaki. I'm glad to see no harm has befallen you."

"Who are you…?"

"Shinozaki, this is the person who tipped us off about where were you headed and led us here." Satoshi said "Her name's Aiko Niwa."

"Oh, is it?" I suddenly realized that she indirectly saved my life. "Thanks for leading them to here. I would've been dead if they're not here in time." She smiled back and said "I'm grateful to hear that."

"So what brings you here?" She asked.

I brought out the same excuse I told them a few moments earlier.

"I see. But such story you're discovering might be more frightening then you would've expected. Oh, I'm sorry to be so presumptuous. I took the liberty of looking into you," She said as she turned around to Ayumi. "I'm what you might call…an intelligence agent, I suppose? Regarding matters of the supernatural. As the little sister of Hinoe Shinozaki…I suppose the quickest way to explain would be to say that I'm a friend of Naho Saenoki's."

"A friend of Naho's?! And you…know Sis, too?"

"Yes, your sister, Hinoe, made a quite a name for herself in this plane."

I really have the urge to know who Hinoe is at this point. Who is she? What has she done that rose her popularity up so high? How is she "gone" by the hand of her little sister? So many questions raced through my mind in mere seconds but asking such questions seemed out of place as Aiko has already started to pay attention on Ayumi's clenched fist.

"Ayumi. Your right hand. Are you not able to open it?"

It's not surprising that nobody has noticed it until now as we were all worried sick about Ayumi but as soon as we did so, Yoshiki was the first one to do something about it.

"Huh? Let me see!" He grabbed her right hand and tried to pry it open, did nothing apart from injuring her fingers.

"There's no point in forcing it. It should open naturally when the time is right. You just need to be patient." Aiko then looked down and noticed a red box on futon. "Oh…And what's this, now?"

I could see her putting efforts to open this box but failed, just as when Yoshiki tried to pry open Ayumi's hand.

"It didn't work." I stated the obvious

"It refused to show what it contains, just like her hand. How fascinating." Aiko seemed over-excited about these unopening power or whatever that prevented us from seeing what's inside. You thought that was enough but no, she asked everyone if she can keep this box for tonight. Obviously, no one argued with that.

"Well, it's getting late tonight. Let's talk more tomorrow, shall we? I'll come meet you after school." Aiko then left the room with excited emotion over that little red box. I was the second one to leave the apartment. Without talking to anyone, I quickly rushed out from the room to the outside of the apartment, only to receive a call from an unknown phone number.

"Hello?"

"How are things going?" The voice was undoubtedly familiar. It belonged to the man I talked with this morning!

"What?! Oh,umm…"

"Fine?"

"FINE YOUR ASS! The fuck is this place?! It almost got me killed! Why didn't you tell me such bullshits before I came here?! And what is this, there's some weirdo bitch talking shit and whatever! What the fuck did you put me into?!" I whined to him as much as a man possibly could. The man however, didn't even flinch.

"A weirdo bitch?" the man asked

"Yeah, and she talked about Ayumi's sister and had some box fetish and shit."

"What does she look like?"

"A dress, purple. A pair of purple eyes, very cold ones. Her name is Aiko Niwa by the way."

"Ah…Aiko Niwa…" He seemed to know who she was "That cold bitch…"

"You knew who she is?!"

"An agent wanna-be…I don't appreciate the way she related herself to things like this. Such a girl with noble experiences and intelligence…it irritates me, and I see it as an insult."

"Whoa."

"So what did she say?"

"She told Ayumi and her friends that she will meet them afterschool, no clue about where will it take place." I gave information as much as I could.

"That's good. Perhaps, go to their school and stalk them or wait until I tell you where they are. I might able to find out where they will meet each other."

The phone was then hanged up. I sighed to myself and said

"What the fuck am I doing with my life?"


End file.
